View full sizeJamie Francis/The OregonianFormer NBA player Brian Grant, who averaged 10.2 points and eight rebounds per game in his three seasons with the Trail Blazers (1997-2000), was diagnosed last year with Parkinson's disease.

Lauren Forman remembers the day she and Brian Grant were sitting in Cafe DuBerry, discussing plans for an event to raise money to battle Parkinson's disease.

Grant wanted one of his former NBA coaches, Pat Riley, to be the event's keynote speaker. So they called Riley.

That sort of personal response to Grant, the highly-respected former Trail Blazers forward who is one of an estimated 1 million people in the United States with Parkinson's, explains the impressive guest list for "Shake It Till We Make It." The two-day event starts Sunday with a dinner, meet-and-greet and auction at the Rose Garden, and concludes Monday with a golf event at Pumpkin Ridge.

The two celebrities most linked to Parkinson's will be there -- boxing great Muhammad Ali, and actor Michael J. Fox, whose foundation will be the beneficiary.

"These guys are all flying in on their own dime," Forman said. "They're coming in because they care about him."

Grant, 38, played 12 seasons in the NBA before retiring in 2006. During his three seasons in Portland, he and Forman formed the Brian Grant Foundation to assist seriously ill children and their families, as well as underprivileged youth. After Grant left Portland to sign with Riley and the Heat in 2000, he and Forman tried to keep the foundation running but found support sparse in Miami, and the foundation closed up.

After Grant retired, he found himself fighting depression and started suffering hand tremors. In January 2009, Grant, then 36, received the shocking diagnosis that he had Parkinson's, a brain disorder that slowly saps a person's ability to control his movements. Parkinson's typically affects patients 60 or older, but there has been a spike in early onset Parkinson's.

After dealing with the shock and emotional fallout, Grant went public, doing numerous interviews to help make the public aware of the disease, essentially following in the footsteps of Fox and Ali, who both reached out to him.

Grant discovered there might be a specific role for him as public voice and face of Parkinson's. Fox's foundation is focused on finding a cure; and Ali's foundation is focused on caring for patients in advanced stages of the disease.

"There was really a need for someone to be in the middle, who could reach out to people who were early-diagnosed with the disease," Forman said. "He really realized that he had a voice, and there were a lot of people interested in him becoming a spokesperson for outreach and education."

Grant has traveled the country to attend fundraisers and to serve as a spokesman. He and Forman also decided to resurrect the foundation, this time as the Brian Grant Foundation for Parkinson's Outreach and Education.

"The fact that it happened to me, with this platform I've been given, means I'm supposed to get out there," Grant said in an interview last summer.

The foundation's initial aim was a small, one-time fundraiser, but that morphed into a star-studded event that will be held annually. Grant got use of Pumpkin Ridge's private Witch Hollow course through a friendship with one of the facility's founders, Barney Hyde, who also is fighting Parkinson's.

Forman believes the fundraiser -- both events are sold out -- will meet its goal of raising $300,000. By prior agreement, this year's proceeds will go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Among the Fox beneficiaries is the Parkinson Center of Oregon at Oregon Health & Science University, where Grant is treated. Future events might disburse funds differently.